Five Senses
by JustJeanette
Summary: Crossover: Due South x Sentinel. A serial killer has come to Chicago. Two Detectives from Cascade follow him and find more than they were expecting. PostTSbBS. Cop!Blair. Slash PreSlash JxB FxK Chapter 3 added 9th May 2007. Ch1 & 2 updated slightly.
1. Chapter 1

Title:Five Senses

Author:JustJeanette

FandomsThe Sentinel, Due South

Genre:Drama, Angst, Slash, Pre-Slash, Case-Based

Pairing(s):Established J/B, pre-slash/Slash Fraser/RayK

Summary:Crossover: Due South x Sentinel. A serial killer has come to Chicago. Two Detectives from Cascade follow him and find more than they were expecting. PostTSbBS. Cop!Blair

Rating:FRAO for Violence and crime detail.

Version1.1 (updated 9th May 2007)

Chapter 1 

"Ellison, Sandburg!" Simon's bellow intercepted the pair of detectives as they entered the bullpen, "My office. Now!"

Sighing softly, Jim looked at his partner and shrugged a shoulder to suggest that the smaller man lead the way. "Looks like you were right, Chief," was voiced for Blair's ears only.

"And don't you wish I wasn't?" Blair's reply was _Sentinel_-soft, meant only for Jim's ears. "It means he's struck again."

"But where?"

The grim looks they received from their colleagues as they headed into Captain Simon Banks' office backed up their automatic assumption that the bellow was related to the ongoing investigation into a perpetrator they'd aptly named Five-Day. Rookie detective, and Jim Ellison's permanent partner, Blair Sandburg had been the one to identify the base serial signature. Unfortunately Blair identified the signature just at the time when their offender would be heading for a new hunting ground; they had five dead in Cascade and that was all they'd get. No-one in two previous states had even picked out that a serious serial offender was in play, which was a testament to both the perpetrator's skill (unfortunately) and to Blair Sandburg's intelligence.

Simon Banks, in a testament to the trust he placed in his detectives, particularly this pair, had pulled in a few markers and had made sure that an unofficial notice had gone out across the country through the Police Department grapevine. Seemed someone had actually paid attention.

"Close the door, Ellison." Simon regarded both men before indicating that they should sit down. "As you've probably guessed, your Five-Day man has struck again. The victim is Reginald Skinner and his body was found in downtown Chicago."

"Similar MO as before?" Blair was fairly certain the answer would be yes but he had to check.

"Similar MO. Skinner was found on the doorstep of the 27th precinct in Chicago when the dayshift arrived. About two hours ago, our time. Anyway, the lieutenant there, Welsh, is an old acquaintance of mine and he called it in here. You two are both formally requested to lead the investigation, liaising with the 27th Precinct and any other agencies necessary until this guy is caught." Simon looked rather smug at that pronouncement making both Jim's and Blair's politics alert alarms sound.

Simon caught the look the two men shared.

"I did say _lead the investigation_, gentlemen. Quite a feather in your caps, I'd say."

"Man, you mean to say we can even boss the Feds around?" Blair might be a detective (a damn fine one, even if he was still considered a rookie, given he'd been on the force officially for less than six months) but he still had a fair amount of the _child of the sixties_ in him thanks to his mother, and, the idea of bossing Feds around was bound to be something Blair would enjoy.

"Just be gentle with them, Sandburg." Simon tried to admonish the young man but his heart wasn't in it. Like any good cop, he knew getting the chance to one-up the Feds was something you didn't pass up. "You are both booked on a 10.00 am flight to Chicago. I suggest you head home and pack for a stay."

"Already done, sir," Jim smiled at the surprised look that appeared momentarily on the captain's face "and, no, we're not adding psychic to our list of skills, but Sandburg was sure we'd get a hit today."

"And you like to be prepared, Jim." Simon really wasn't surprised to find his best team was already ahead of the game but sometime, just sometimes, he wished they didn't need to be. "You'll be met by a Detective Raymond Vecchio. Now go. Get this guy and get back here."

"Yes, sir," the two detectives answered simultaneously. Blair added a snappy salute before they headed back to the desk area they shared. Jim was already pulling up the Chicago PD files to see what they could find out about the detective they'd be working with.

"Forewarned is forearmed, correct, Jim?" Blair laughed softly, as he looked over Jim's shoulder and started reading off the pertinent facts. "Detective first-class, mediocre arrest rate until three years ago at which point it seems to have picked up markedly. No partner listed. Isn't that rather unusual, Jim? I mean for a city with a reputation like Chicago, I would have thought they'd have all detectives working in pairs."

Jim had been surprised at that fact as well but he'd gotten a bit further in his reading. "Seems like he acquired an unofficial partner about then, Chief --- a Canadian Mountie, of all things."

"How does a Chicago flatfoot end up partnered with a Mountie?"

"Good question. Should give us a bit of light reading for on the plane." Jim hit the print button, and all the information they had about Vecchio was soon spooling out into Blair's eager hands.

-------------------------

"Good morning, Ray." Fraser, bright (in the red serge today) and cheerful, in his quietly polite way, sat himself down in his usual chair and eyed the file that Ray Kowalski was currently perusing. "Anything interesting this morning?"

It never ceased to amaze Ray that Fraser would show up at the 27th within an hour of any really weird case hitting his desk. Take the one currently sitting front and centre. Sometime between five and six this morning someone had left a care package at the back of the 27th parking lot; Reginald Skinner, no longer wanted by the FBI due to the fact that he was well and truly deceased. Skinner had apparently been killed elsewhere, in a particularly gruesome manner, and his body dumped where it would be found by detectives arriving for first shift.

Welsh had handed Ray the case file, told him two experts from Cascade PD Washington State were being flown in to help with this one and then had let him loose with the suggestion he get down to the morgue ASAP and start investigating. That had been about ten minutes ago and here was Fraser asking if they had anything interesting.

"Not much, just the first _local_ victim for a serial killer that has decided to make Chicago home for a while."

"Ahh."

Ray looked over at Benton Fraser, master of the understatement. "Yes, ahhh. We have a corpse; one Reginald Skinner, initially dumped in our parking lot, and now parked with Mort." Considering what had been parked with Mort caused Ray's face to turn slightly green. He'd managed to read only a small portion from the preliminary report but the details were enough to turn his stomach.

"Ray, are you all right?" Fraser noticed the colour change immediately.

"No, but we'll still have to go see Mort, and then check out the parking lot." Ray stood up decisively and headed towards the stairs. "Come on, and no donuts this morning, Dief."

Diefenbaker actually ignored Ray. Instead, he sat at Fraser's feet waiting till the Mountie moved.

Fraser looked briefly at Diefenbaker before he picked up the report that Ray had purposefully left on his desk. A quick scan of the contents clued him into his friend's behaviour. Eyes, ears, nose and tongue removed and placed beside the corpse in a parody of a face. The arms had been de-gloved, from the elbow down, and the skin from the hands folded on the corpse's breast like an Egyptian mummy. Not a pretty picture at the best of times. "Come on, Diefenbaker, I think Ray is going to need our assistance on this one." Fraser stood and his lupine companion followed him down to the PD's morgue.

- - - - - - -

Ray hated the morgue. He could deal with death, it was a part of policing at the detective level, but dealing with corpses, particularly when the victim had been brutally killed, was not the same as dealing with death. How Mort could do his job on a day to day basis was explained, at least as far as Ray was concerned, by the fact that he considered the forensic pathologist somewhat insane.

"Someone with a lot of skill did this." Mort was holding up the left arm. "See, the incisions are precise, clean. This man wasn't butchered like a piece of meat."

"Not butchered…" Ray couldn't believe Mort had actually said that.

"Actually, Ray, I suspect Mort is referring to the fact that our victim was killed with almost surgical precision," Fraser interjected as he walked into the room. Stepping closer to the mortuary table, Fraser joined Mort in looking at the corpse. "See the way in which the blood vessels behind the ear have been carefully ligated before the ear was removed."

"Yes, yes, well-spotted, Constable Fraser." Mort moved to look more closely at the left ear before moving to check the other injury sites.

Ray moved away from the table. He was just as happy to let Fraser handle this part of the investigation even as he despaired about his friend's apparent fascination with the way in which people died. What worried Ray about this case was that, even given the sketchy details he had so far about the supposed earlier kills, it looked like the perpetrator was escalating the level of violence. Further details, however, were going to have to wait until the out-of-town talent arrived. Said talent was to have with them all the other case files, a good thing as currently he, and Fraser, were working kind of blind.

"Come, look at this, Benton." Mort had returned his scrutiny to the arm and was pointing a scalpel at the wrist area. "Here is why Mr. Skinner died: exsanguination. The veins and arteries at his wrist have been stitched open." Long open scars traced down from the elbow to wrist. "The stitching is remarkable. Whoever did this has an amazingly precise hand, such neat little stitches; not a millimetre of suture wasted."

"The fact that there was no blood around the body then backs up the theory that he was killed elsewhere, and dumped at the station?"

"Yes, that's right. Either that or he was bled out on something like a tarpaulin that was taken away post-mortem. Still, I would expect to have found a lot more blood on his posterior surface if that was the case. Most likely he was killed elsewhere, somewhere where the killer would have had sufficient time to work uninterrupted."

"May we look at his clothing?"

Taking the nod in the direction of an evidence bag on the next trolley one over from where the corpse was laid out as an affirmative, Benton began sorting through the victim's clothes.

Ray moved to join him as this wasn't the bloodless mess the corpse was. "Well?"

Fraser ignored Ray in favour of a close scrutiny of the shoulder seams on the victim's jacket. Grabbing a pair of tweezers Fraser carefully teased some small fragments of matter out of the seam. "Does this look like a coal speck to you, Ray?"

"How should I know, Fraser?" There was a tiny lump of something, only just visible, in the blade of the tweezers. "You're the one with the good eyesight, remember."

"Sorry, Ray." Fraser continued his inspection after bagging the fragments.

"No need to apologise. Just tell me what else you think you've got there." Ray sat back and watched as Fraser went over all the clothes with a meticulous care that would have done any forensic technician proud.

"The lack of blood on the cuffs, and for that matter, the rest of the clothing, suggests that our victim was stripped before he was killed and the clothing put back on afterwards. Some of the matter caught in the shoulder seams might be from the place where he was murdered. Fingerprints won't get anything off the clothes either, I can smell baby powder and latex which suggests the perpetrator, or perpetrators, were wearing gloves. I think we need to have a look at where the body was dumped first."

"Yes, we've got time for that. We don't have to pick up the experts until four pm." Ray was glad of an excuse to be off and moving; watching Fraser work was one thing, but when the Mountie had started sniffing at the victim's shorts, well, the less said the better.

"Experts?"

"Sorry. I forgot to tell you. The serial was identified out of Cascade, Washington State. Some pair of wunderkind picked it up, and, as they are the experts on the perp's signature they are being flown in to lead the investigation. We're just supposed to provide the taxi service."

"Surely you don't believe that, Ray. Inter-agency and inter-police force co-operation is an important duty for any police officers. Think of what we could learn from these people. Identifying a serial signature is a highly complex process. I mean, Ray, you do realise that the FBI has an entire specialist branch devoted to the profiling of serious serial offender. Think about what we could learn about recognising and developing profiles from these experts." Fraser's eyes were alight with joy at the mere thought of learning something new.

"All right, Fraser, all right. Stop with the sales pitch. It just rankles that we have to hand this over to a pair of cops from Washington State."

"Would you rather hand the case over to the FBI?" Fraser was fairly certain what the answer to that question would be; better to hand over to other cops than the blue suited dweeb brigade that seemed to characterise the Chicago FBI office.

"Fine, but let's get moving. Maybe we can show these out-of-towners how we do things in the big city. We don't have to pick them up until four; maybe we can have the case solved by then."

"I find your sudden optimism rather refreshing, Ray." Fraser smiled to indicate that he was gently poking fun at his friend. The thought of experts etc., could wait until later. For now, they had to find out what they could.

- - - - - - -

The back corner of the 27's parking lot had been taped off, well away from where the body had been found, and was being zealously guarded by two young Uniforms. The press was in attendance, almost salivating at the idea that someone successfully committed a crime of this magnitude so close to a police station; the only saving grace was that the members of the fourth estate had no idea it was part of a larger serial offence. Ignoring the microphones, cameras, and requests for comments, the two men ducked under the tape (leaving Diefenbaker to growl at the press corps) and headed over to where a couple of the forensic crew were squatting down. Ray approached the technicians whilst Fraser started to look around.

"Vecchio, you got tagged for this one did you?"

"Yes, Simmonds, so what have you found?"

"Not a lot. The victim was probably dumped here about 4:30am. The area under the body was still dry, so he had to have been placed there before the short shower we had at five. No sign of a weapon, no prints that we could use on anything, not even a decent partial. Whoever did this was good, didn't leave a lot for us to find." Simmonds was not particularly happy; the press at his back, and nothing of worth to even bag up. This wouldn't look good on the news tonight.

Moments later Simmonds was even more unimpressed as he heard the Mountie call Vecchio over to look at something. He and the crew had already been over that area with a fine-tooth comb, but it looked like they might have missed something. "Bat ears and eagle eyes," Simmonds muttered to his assisting technician as they both got up and followed Ray.

Fraser, kneeling down in the alley behind the station lot and about ten feet away from the back entrance, was holding up a slightly damp piece of newsprint. Yesterday's date was visible so the garbage couldn't have been there long; probably blown down the alley on the winds last night. Something about it, though, must have really caught Fraser's attention as he was totally focused on the ground under the piece of paper. The Mountie actually jumped slightly when Ray touched his shoulder to get his attention.

Barely visible under the paper was a partial foot print in a layer of slimy mud.

"Come on, Fraser that could have been there forever."

"I don't think so, Ray. Look." Fraser had somehow or other acquired a pair of fine point tweezers and was using them to indicate some specks embedded in the mud. "See, these look a bit like the matter I found in Mr. Skinner's sleeve seams."

Simmonds and Fletcher, Simmonds' assisting technician, arrived at that moment. Fletcher had the camera out and set for macro photography so quickly, it looked like he had expected to need it that way. Fletcher was right of course, if the Mountie had seen something then Fletcher expected to need the camera. He'd seen Fraser pull this stunt far too often now not to expect results.

"Sleeve seams?" Simmonds rather hated coming into a forensics discussion with Fraser without all the facts. The Mountie had garnered quite a reputation with the Chicago Forensics Unit over the last few years ,but the fact that he often got to see the evidence before it was passed down to Forensics often meant that the Mountie sometimes had a better picture than they did. If Fraser wasn't so good at sharing what he knew there would have been a lot of resentment, but as Fraser tended to over-share, the Forensics unit tended to welcome him with open lab-coats.

"I had the chance to examine the victim's clothing earlier. There was some particulate matter caught in the seams. Very similar to what I can see here."

"Okay, we'll photograph and bag it up."

"Yeah and, uh, expedite the analysis too, pronto like." Ray jumped into the conversation before Fraser and Simmonds headed off into the esoteric.

-------------------------

For all that they'd been packed on the off chance they'd be sent elsewhere after the Five-Day offender, Jim and Blair only just made their flight. Vecchio, it seemed, was a busy detective these days with a knack for solving strange cases. This fact had meant that the two detectives had needed to pull a reasonably large amount of information about their liaison in Chicago. Jim and Blair meant to use the flight time to get a feel for the man, would he be a help, or a hindrance, the foremost question on their minds; particularly given Jim's _Sentinel_ abilities. Unspoken, but still taken into consideration, was the fact that if Jim had something meaty to concentrate on then the flight itself wouldn't tire him out as much; planes and Jim's hyperactive senses didn't mix real well these days.

"Man, Jim, and here I thought Cascade was the most dangerous city in America." Blair was reading one of the more recent case files, "I mean, look at this; pirates, toxic waste, and a gold robbery."

"What?" Jim looked at his over-active partner with a fondness that he normally kept well and truly under lock and key, but they were away from the PD and prying eyes. Anything that got Blair excited these days was a good thing. The scars from the whole dissertation fiasco might be healing, but there was a way to go yet. Jim's own actions hadn't exactly been sterling at the time; in fact his actions had added to the scars, and in many ways the older detective was still trying to make up for his behaviour. Jim's joy was short lived, however, as his _partner_ flipped to another page causing Blair's heart rate to spike suddenly.

"Blair?" He only ever used his partner's name when he was concerned. "What's up?"

"Remember that Mountie you mentioned?"

"The unofficial partner?"

"I know him." Blair didn't look real happy about that fact, which surprised Jim; normally Blair was more than happy to renew old acquaintances.

"Chief?" Indicating he was listening Jim hoped that Blair would start talking and explain the sudden melancholia.

"Back in the early days of my diss a lot of test subjects were _suddenly_ found for me. This guy was one of them."

Blair might be say he was happy working as a cop, and he was a damn good one in Jim's opinion, but the loss of Blair's academic career and the way in which his academic colleagues had abandoned him still hurt the younger man. For a while, it had looked like his police colleagues were going to jump the same way as his academic colleagues and that had really done a number on the younger man's self-esteem. In the end it had been Simon that had salvaged something good out of the whole fiasco, and even now Jim was willing to swear that Blair would attempt to walk on water just to justify the captain's faith in him.

When Jim had finally caught the clue bus he had tried his best to be supportive of Blair. Mind you, the fact that it was his captain that had come to Blair's rescue instead of Blair's much vaunted Blessed Protector (namely himself) still rankled. After all, Blair had thrown away his life just to protect an anal-retentive, ungrateful asshole of a cop who at the time had joined in the Blair-bashing along with everyone else, but there were times when Blair's old life still jumped up and bit them. This appeared to be one of them.

"So he was a _Sentinel_ candidate then? I suppose I should be glad he washed out." Jim pulled the younger man into a sideways hug, though he held it a little longer than technically necessary. One of the other nicer side effects of having to re-evaluate his relationship with Blair, no longer tag-along observer but fully shielded cop, was that he had re-evaluated said relationship and come out of it with more than a partner.

"Washed out is an understatement. I still have no idea why his superiors sent him down to Rainier. The man was perfectly average across the board. It's kind of why I remember him. I mean most of the other _candidates_ I got saddled with had some level of hypersensitivity in at least one sense but this guy, man, he was a complete blank. Though he was smarter than the average cop, I'll give him that; he'd actually heard of Burton."

"You're kidding."

"Nope. Seems he'd been raised by his paternal grandparents; travelling librarians in the Northwest Territories. He'd probably read his way though every book in Canada by the time he was twelve. Thing is, he's likely to ask about the dissertation."

"You can't be sure of that, Chief."

"Knowing the way things keep coming back at us, Jim, I'm willing to bet it's the first thing he asks about."

-------------------------

Finally, some two hours after they'd entered the lot, Ray and Fraser made their way back to the bullpen to go over all the information they had. Fraser asked again to look over the file, particularly what data had been sent ahead of the experts from Cascade. There wasn't much, just names of the victims, dates and cause of death; looked like they would have to wait until the experts arrived to get any more details.

"Ray, who is it exactly that we are meeting?"

"A Detective Jim Ellison and Detective Blair Sandburg; they are Cascade PD's wunderkinds. Their flight gets in to O'Hare at four, like I said."

Fraser frowned at the names mentioned which set off Ray's alarm bells. In the year plus that he'd been unofficially partnered with the Mountie, Ray had learnt a thing or two about the closed expressions that characterized Benton Fraser, control freak. The current expression was almost new. It was the wary look of someone who had a secret that they suddenly weren't sure was going to stay that way. If pushed, Ray would have said Fraser almost looked… afraid.

"You okay there, Fraser?"

"Sorry Ray, I was just wool-gathering. You said Detective Blair Sandburg."

"Why? Do you think you might know this guy?" Snapping at Fraser wasn't generally a good idea ---Fraser could shut down like a clam with the best of them--- but Ray tended to get belligerent when he was worried about Fraser. Belligerence was the safer option he'd long since decided; the other option involved getting up close and real, real, personal with Fraser and he was fairly sure that wasn't going to happen. Still, a man could dream, couldn't he?

"I'm not sure. I knew an anthropology student studying at Rainier University in Cascade named Blair Sandburg. He was doing research into people with heightened senses. The RCMP volunteered me as a possible test subject."

"Heightened senses? Oh, that whole _tasting everything_ habit that you've got?" Ray had to laugh. It seemed that some jokers in the RCMP had wanted to embarrass Fraser and what better way than make him act like a guinea pig? Suddenly Ray didn't feel like laughing anymore, as the thought finally made its way into his higher cognitive areas; Fraser, for all that he cared about people, was a surprisingly private individual.

"So what did he decide?" Ray tilted his head and tried to look interested in the answer; his manner more suggesting that he understood the joke that the hierarchy at the RCMP had been trying to pull.

Fraser smiled deprecatingly at him. "He decided that the RCMP really didn't know what they were talking about, and that I was as average as the next man."

Ray had to smile at that comment. "Then this Sandburg couldn't have been doing his job real well. After all, Fraser, you are anything but average."

"Thank you kindly, Ray." Fraser smiled in return but his heart wasn't really in it. A fact that was rather obvious to his far too observant friend.

"You sure you're okay, Fraser?"

Lost in his memories of the graduate student, Fraser didn't answer. He remembered Blair Sandburg as an outgoing and extremely intelligent young man. Luckily for him, Sandburg had also been so focussed on his search for the Holy Grail that he hadn't really paid all that much attention to the young Mountie the RCMP had sent down to him. This had been early in Sandburg's candidacy, and unbeknownst to the then graduate student, Rainier had put a bit of pressure on some of its alumni to find test subjects for the wunderkind. The alumni had come through and Sandburg had been inundated with _potentials_, most of whom had no idea why they'd been sent to see some neo-hippy-witch-doctor. Fraser had had an idea, and he had just played dumb, to protect himself. What worried him now was that it might come back to haunt him.

"Looks like your Blair Sandburg and Detective Sandburg are the same person." Ray's comment cut across Fraser's musings. "See?"

While Fraser had been lost in thought, Ray had pulled up additional information about the two detectives from Cascade. It seemed that Sandburg had been a bit of a _Fraser_ to Ellision's _Vecchio_; anthropologist and unofficial partner on an extended observer pass.

The details on-screen were enough to confirm Fraser's fear, and to set off a completely new set of fears. That Ray was avidly reading those details was something Fraser preferred not to consider, at least right at that moment.

"Funny thing is about a year ago the kid admits to committing academic fraud, and yet suddenly gets a Detective's shield. The topper is Sandburg then joins the Major Crimes unit, no less, straight out of the academy. You think there might be something more to this _Sentinel_ thing than they let on?" Ray Kowalski was a very good detective, in this case, unfortunately. Ray had zeroed in on the one fact amongst the screen full of data that meant anything.

"Well, there have been a number of well-documented studies on people with one or more of the senses appearing to be more enhanced than the general public, Ray." Fraser tried to distract his partner from concentrating too much on the _Sentinel_ idea.

"And you've read them all, no doubt?" Ray smiled at his bizarre friend. Must be something to do with being brought up by librarians, but the sheer amount of information, useless or otherwise, stored in that Mountie brain was phenomenal. "Anyway, it seems Ellison and Sandburg are the experts on our killer. Might be useful having a _super_ man about for this one instead of average old us?"

"Do we know where they are staying whilst they are in Chicago?" Fraser apparently had something on his mind, given that was not the sort of question Ray would have expected his friend to ask.

"The PD is putting them up in one of the safe houses, I believe," or that was what Welsh had told him this morning when he'd briefed Ray on the fact that they had experts incoming. Given they had no idea how long they might be in Illinois, it had been decided it was cheaper to house them in one of the safe houses rather than pay hotel costs.

Thinking about the safe houses that were normally used by the PD had Fraser shuddering. His instincts told him that Ellison would not be happy in that sort of environment for very similar reasons to why he, himself, preferred to avoid them. The problem was, how to introduce a change of location, without giving away information that was not his to impart. The consulate would be a better location; now all he had to do was get Ray, Welsh and Thatcher to agree.

"Ray, do you think Lieutenant Welsh would object if we had Detectives Ellison and Sandburg stay at the consulate? After all, some of what we'll be discussing will be of a sensitive nature."

"That might be OK, Fraser." Ray looked closely at Fraser, but Fraser had his usual 'who, me?' look on his face. Ray wasn't sure why Fraser had made the suggestion, but after considering some of what he'd now read about the ongoing case, the idea sounded very good indeed. "How about you check with the Ice-Queen, and then we can put the idea to the Lieutenant?"

The Ice-Queen was in a good mood, apparently. She agreed almost instantly to Fraser's plan, but given that Thatcher was smart, and a political animal to boot, the idea of assisting in anyway to apprehend a serial offender would look good for her and the Canadian government. Turnbull was ecstatic at the idea of guests even allowing for Fraser's curt comments on the suggested banquet the younger Mountie was suddenly envisaging.

-------------------------

Blair talked his partner through the landing with an ease born of practice. "Keep the dials down Jim, keep them down." Voiced low, and in the soothing _Guide_ voice that went straight to the centre of Jim's _Sentinel_ brain, Blair continued murmuring until the plane had come to a complete stop and had begun to taxi to the airport proper.

Jim, for his part, just kept his eyes closed and concentrated on the soothing tones. Takeoffs and landings had never been pleasant, though they were a fact of life for the ex-ranger now detective, but with his senses now _fully_ online, those parts of travel had become to be a special form of torture. If he didn't have Blair to soothe him through those times he'd have preferred to be completely drugged out of his mind rather than go through the pain that came from rapidly changing pressures. Luckily, he hadn't had to fly without Blair much since the whole _Sentinel_ thing became part and parcel of his life. It was only when Blair indicated that they were down, and taxiing, that Jim let his senses settle back into their normal mode.

Five minutes after his senses settled Jim started getting jumpy.

"You okay, man?" Blair noticed immediately the change in Jim; after all, he had a PhD, unacknowledged though it was, in Jim-watching.

"Not really." Jim frowned as he tried to isolate what it was that was sending his alert radar up. It wasn't danger, exactly, but he felt wary, like he was trespassing. "It feels like someone out there wants to know what I'm doing here."

"Wow, that's different."

"Yeah, but is it a good different, Chief?" Jim didn't like it when his senses did things he wasn't expecting, usually with good reason. It had been a while since that had happened; he and Blair, he thought, had dealt with most of the major problems by now, leaving only the pesky details to deal with. Of course the devil was in the detail so Jim didn't see himself not needing Blair as his _Guide_ anytime in the near future. That he saw, and held dearly, Blair as more than his _Guide_ was known only to himself and the man in question, though it was suspected amongst Major Crimes. Police forces in general weren't exactly tolerant towards relationships between anyone but man and woman.

"Well, let's get you off this plane and hopefully our _taxi_ service can get us settled somewhere private real soon." Blair didn't like sense flare-ups anymore than Jim did; he still had nightmares from pretty much every instance of _Sentinel Sense_ flare-up; the Alex fiasco being the most notable. "Hey, it's not an Alex kind of feeling is it?"

"Nope."

The curt response had Blair relaxing infinitesimally, if the problem wasn't an _Alex kind of feeling_ he could deal with it. Still, as the plane was rather full; Blair placed his hand over Jim's in an effort to ground the man whilst they waited until most of the passengers had disembarked.

- - - - - - - - - -

It was Jim who saw the welcome committee first. The Blond man had to be Detective Vecchio, which was kind of odd, as he did not look the least bit Italian. Vecchio was _attempting_ to stand still but the frenetic energy sparking in the air about him suggested stillness was a foreign concept; in fact, the very air of contained energy reminded Jim rather forcefully of Blair. The wolf sitting at the detective's heels distracted Jim momentarily from his _pinging_ senses, and the red-suited Mountie that stood at parade rest behind the detective, but only momentarily.

"Um, Chief," Jim sub-vocalised to get his companion's attention. He wasn't about to approach the Mountie without his _Guide_ glued to his side. "I thought you said he was average."

"What?" Blair turned to find out what was worrying Jim. Any further comment was cut short as he took in the two men (and lupine companion) that were obviously waiting for them. "Holy shit. Do you see that?"

Blair's reaction was somewhat different from what Jim had expected. Jim was sensing that the Mountie was a _Sentinel_; what Blair was sensing was anybody's guess. Weird just didn't begin to describe the situation if Blair's shamanistic nature had come into play. "See what, Darwin?"

"The Spirit _Guide_." Blair hadn't even noticed the Mountie, Blair was staring at the white wolf with a mixture of intellectual lust and pure unadulterated delight. "What, you can't see the wolf?"

"Yes, I can see the wolf, Darwin, and so can the Blond." Jim was taken aback as he watched the Vecchio drop his hand to the wolf's head. That was stranger than normal. Did that mean that Blair could actually touch his Panther _guide_? It was something they'd never considered.

"You mean Vecchio's a _Sentinel_? Doyouthinkheknows? Yourenotgoingtogoallterritorialonmeareyouman? Whatarethechances? DoyouthinkIcantesthim?"

"Breathe Sandburg, breathe." Jim was tempted to smack his _Guide_ upside the head, but as Vecchio was approaching them with his hand outstretched, he held his impulse in check.

"Detectives Ellison and Sandburg?" Vecchio asked, though it was patently obvious that they were the men he'd been sent to pick up. "Welcome to Chicago. I hope your flight wasn't too bad. I'm Ray Vecchio."

"Pleased to meet you Detective Vecchio," Blair was almost jumping out of his trainers with excitement. "Call me Blair, and this is Jim." The nod indicated the stern man standing beside him.

Ray turned to inspect the older man. Dangerous was the first thought that crossed his mind; there hadn't been many details about Jim Ellison prior to joining Cascade PD but what there was, had been on the mark. Ellison was not a man to be taken lightly; an Alpha male if Ray had ever met one. The meeting between Ellison and Fraser looked like it would be an interesting one; though he'd prefer to observe it from a safe distance, like from Australia, maybe.

"Jim." Hands were shaken and each man took the measure of the other; no one was found wanting. "Let me introduce you to Benton Fraser." The low-pitched growl had Ray adding, "and Diefenbaker. Just make sure to have donuts handy, he'll behave."

_Interesting_ as a description of the meeting between Mountie and _Sentinel_ ended up being the understatement of the millennia. Fraser remained at parade rest, which should have alerted Ray to the potential for problems, but as Ray was being inundated with weird questions from Blair, he wasn't able to pay close enough attention to the tension in the air. It was the full-throated growl that issued from Diefenbaker that suddenly focussed everyone's gaze on the meeting between Jim Ellison and Benton Fraser.

Diefenbaker, ears back, teeth barred and hackles up looked ready to go for Jim Ellison's throat. The sheer anger radiating off of the wolf was palpable to all four men.

Jim Ellison was no fool, and as such stopped his approach about ten feet away from beast and man. Jim's gaze fixed firmly on the Mountie waiting to see what his move would be.

Blair, suddenly buying a clue, moved to stand behind his _Sentinel_; a hand to the back of Jim's neck to help keep the man focused on the here and now. It was no surprise to the _Guide_ and Shaman that their spirit _guide_s, panther and wolf, appeared in the space between Jim and the Mountie. All three animals on attack alert.

Ray, left to his own devices, stood open-mouthed, watching what looked like, to all intents and purposes anyway, two gang leaders sizing each other up. The tension in the air was so thick that for once Ray was glad of Fraser's habit of not going about the place armed. The last time Ray had seen this sort of standoff, there had been a pile of corpses afterward. Standing behind the men from Cascade, Ray, was suddenly aware that whilst Fraser might not be packing, these two men probably were; Ray decided to stay exactly where he was. If Fraser needed covering, well Ray had his back.

"Diefenbaker." Soft-voiced but, with a visible wave of power, at least to the shaman, called the white wolf to heel. The Mountie then dropped to his knees beside the wolf, and firmly grabbed the animal by the muzzle. "They are here to help find a killer, Diefenbaker. Now behave, your manners are better than that."

When he finally had Diefenbaker settled once again (more or less calmly at his side), Fraser looked up at the pair of detectives with a sad cast to his eyes. The look was reminiscent of every orphan waif in any Disney movie, a child looking through the candy store window but unable to go in. "Blair, it is good to see you again. I see you found yourself a watchman."


	2. Chapter 2

Title:Five Senses

Author:JustJeanette

FandomsThe Sentinel, Due South

Genre:Drama, Angst, Slash, Pre-Slash, Case-Based

Pairing(s):Established J/B, pre-slash/Slash Fraser/RayK

Summary:Crossover: Due South x Sentinel. A serial killer has come to Chicago. Two Detectives from Cascade follow him and find more than they were expecting. PostTSbBS. Cop!Blair

Rating:FRAO for Violence and crime detail.

Version1.1 (updated 9th May 2007)

Chapter 2 

'_Well at least he did go mentioning Sentinels_', was Blair's first reaction. "You knew, didn't you?"

Benton Fraser just looked sad. "I knew I was one of what you were looking for, but I was not yours." The cryptic comment was understood instantly by Jim and Blair, though Ray had no idea what they were talking about. "I had no desire to have my life become public property, so I was less than honest with you, for that I am sorry."

Any resentment Blair might have had to the fact that he'd actually been fooled was quashed quickly by that comment. Indirect though it was, Benton's comment made it obvious that the Mountie was aware of Blair's dissertation and the following fiasco; worse, Benton's comment also indicated that he had been well aware of the possible consequences to allowing Blair to realise the truth about his own skill levels. That the reaction to Blair's dissertation had been a media feeding frenzy had Blair accepting that maybe Benton had been right when he'd downplayed (massively, it would seem) his skills. With the resentment gone, Blair was able to consider the Mountie with _Guide_ and Shaman eyes; what he saw then, was painful. _Sentinel_, the Mountie might be, but, he was essentially un_guide_d, ungrounded. "How do you cope?" Compassion had him asking.

"Diefenbaker helps, and other spirits have been known to interfere." A look of annoyance danced across the Mountie's eyes and he shifted his gaze to a point just behind Blair.

Blair turned quickly, and was surprised to see an older man standing in the doorway to the gangplank between the concourse and the plane that he, and Jim, had recently disembarked from. He was also in RCMP uniform, a picture-perfect mirror to Fraser's own. How the man had gotten there, given that they were the last passengers to disembark and the man was certainly not a member of the flight crew, was another question Blair would have liked answered. People just did not manage to sneak up on Jim. The answer would have to wait, however, as Benton Fraser continued to speak.

"Now Blair, will you introduce me to your watchman?" The request sounded strange, and Jim was looking more than a bit confused at the interactions, but it seemed that Fraser was indicating a need for a _Guide_-controlled introduction.

A shrug of his shoulders was all the contribution Jim made to the current standoff. It's up to you, Blair, was unspoken.

Some instinct had Blair take Jim by the hand and, with their spirit _guide_s flanking them, walk toward the Mountie. Diefenbaker stepped back to stand at Fraser's side, allowing the young _guide_ to bring the two men together. "Benton Fraser, I would like to make Jim Ellison known to you. He comes to your city to continue the hunt for a killer who has killed in his city."

Fraser reached his hand out to Blair, and allowed the Shaman to place it on top of Jim Ellison's. "I recognize you, Jim Ellison, as a friend to the city."

The moment Fraser's words were spoken the tension in the air evaporated.

Diefenbaker, quick to take advantage of the change in atmosphere, approached the other two spirit _guide_s and before anyone had a clue as to what was about to happen, there was a flurry, and suddenly over 300 pounds of animal were engaged in a game of tag. A game anyone else in the terminal, with the exception of the Ray, only saw as Diefenbaker behaving like a puppy, off in a happy game of his own.

Ray had to wonder if he had checked his sanity at the door as he suddenly saw two wolves and a panther start playing tag around the seats of the terminal. "Would someone mind explaining what the fuck is going on?"

All three men turned to face Ray, who was currently staring at the check-in desk where the panther was waiting to spring at Diefenbaker. Any explanations, however, were forestalled, as two members of airport security approached (walking though the space where the panther sat) and rather pointedly requested that Fraser get his dog under control.

Blair Sandburg's eyes nearly fell out of his head at that point. In his, albeit limited, experience spirit animals were not visible to anyone except the person (or persons) they guarded; the general exception being those blessed with the way of the Shaman. Only when the fact that the security officers had made no comment about the wolf or panther did the quarter drop; Diefenbaker was actually incarnate on the material plane.

"Fraser?" Ray, staring at where the animals had been cavorting about the terminal, unknowingly joined Blair in the eye popping squad. Apparently deciding that he couldn't be seeing what he thought he was seeing, the blond reached into his coat and snagged out his glasses. Putting them on however didn't change anything; there were still two wolves and a black panther, though at least now all animals were under control and seated close to the humans they _guide_d. A little further away, almost as though afraid to approach, crouched a Serval.

"Yes, Ray." Fraser looked at him and appeared to be trying some form of long distance Vulcan mind-meld. The scary thing was Ray could almost hear Fraser saying 'go alone with this for now'. "Of course we should be going, officers. I am very sorry that Diefenbaker got a little bit out of control but you must understand he has not seen Blair for such a long time that he got over excited."

Fraser's earnest face completely fooled the two pay-by-the-hour security men with Officer One even going so far as to admonish the Mountie to maintain better control of his animal. Ray ended up having to bite down on his tongue as Officer Two then launched into a great spiel about how normal folks tend to get a bit wary about large dogs on the loose in airports and that maybe next time the Mountie might consider a leash; Diefenbaker accepting a leash that wasn't part of a sled rig, so not going to happen.

Fraser, however, listened intently, nodding at the appropriate junctions, whilst he signalled Ray to start escorting their guests toward baggage pick-up. Realising that he wasn't going to get any more information out of Fraser, or the other two detectives until they were probably somewhere a little more private Ray turned and indicated that the other two men should follow him. Sandburg and Ellison complied without fuss and in very short order the detectives' bags were collected and the entire group, spirit animals included, were piling into Ray's GTO.

- - - - - - - - - -

Concentrating on driving is what Ray should have been doing, but as he was a past master at navigating about Chicago, he pinned Fraser instead with a laser-like glance. "Are you going to explain what just happened, or am I going to have to throw you out of the car…while it's still moving!"

"Really, Ray, there is no need to resort to violence." Fraser adjusted his lanyard slightly, which was a sure sign of nerves as said lanyard could have been used as a plumb-line already, and turned to glance at the men in the back seat, obviously asking permission to explain.

Blair, who was currently marvelling at how the spirit animals, Diefenbaker not included, managed to fit into the car whilst actually not being there, was, for once in his life, without a ready obfuscation. That being said, Blair was rather certain that obfuscation was not the way to go but that was only because of the presence of the Serval which indicated that Ray Vecchio was going to need to know. "Go ahead, Benton."

"Are you sure about this, Chief?" Jim's low voice was meant for Blair only to hear, though he accepted that the Mountie probably heard as well. What surprised Jim was that Blair was okaying saying anything, particularly without checking with him first.

Putting a hand on Jim's thigh, Blair spoke in _Sentinel_ soft tones forgetting for a moment that there was another person in the car who would be able to hear what he said no matter how low he voiced. "He may be Benton's _Guide_."

Benton Fraser nearly gave himself a case of whiplash as he turned his head to properly face the Shaman; a look of raw, naked hope in his eyes.

"Mine?"

Ray, still waiting for an answer, felt like he'd been hit with a two-by-four in the solar plexus. The degree of longing he heard in Fraser's voice was painful to bear, mainly because he wished that Fraser would talk about him like that.

"Yes, yours." Blair spoke to the _Sentinel_, soft voiced so that only Benton (and Jim could hear him).

In truth, Blair felt like kicking himself for forgetting that the Mountie would have skills similar to his own _Sentinel_. Looking at the men in the front seat Blair saw the fragile threads that reached out from Detective Vecchio towards the Mountie; Benton, however, was wrapped in threads that appeared to be glued to his body by the force of his will. The threads were similar to those that bound him to his _Sentinel_, the difference appeared to be that he and Jim acknowledged the link between them while Blair suspected that Ray Vecchio knew nothing of the bonds and Benton Fraser was probably so used to _making do_ that he hadn't noticed when the thing he wished for most had come into this orbit. It looked to Blair that he was needed here in his role as Shaman even more than was needed as a police officer. "Now explain to Detective Vecchio what he needs to know. After all, you know him better than I do."

"Remember when you asked this morning if there was more to this _Sentinel_ thing than they had let on?"

"Yes, Fraser, I do." While gripping the wheel tightly as he navigated off the Kennedy Express Way and onto North Cumberland Avenue, Ray had to wonder what this morning's conversation had to do with the current situation; then his brain kicked back into gear. "What, you mean to say there _is_?"

"Yes, Ray. But what I'm about to tell you can not become public knowledge. Can you accept that you cannot tell anyone what I am about to tell you?"

Ray was about to make some form of '_of course I can'_ type comment when he got a look at Fraser's face. Fraser wasn't kidding here, he suddenly realised. Putting Fraser's attitude with the little information that the _Sentinel_ article had contained added up to s scenario that could be very painful if the wrong people knew the truth. "I'm cool, Fraser. Your secret will be safe with me."

"That's actually a good thing, Ray. For the secret actually may involve you rather intimately."

'_I wish,'_ was Ray's first thought but most likely not in the way Fraser had meant his comment.

"_Sentinel_'s do exist."

"And…"

"It is the _and_, Ray, that is the crux of the matter. A _Sentinel_ is something more or possibly less than pure human. One of the original non-_Sentinel_ researchers, Richard Burton, referred to _Sentinels_ as genetic throwback to prehistoric man and he may have been almost right. _Sentinels_ possess enhanced senses, able to see, hear, touch, smell and taste, much more than the average human."

"That explains your tasting everything," Ray interjected as Fraser's odd behaviours were suddenly, and completely, explained. "You're one, aren't you?"

"Yes, Ray… an incomplete _Sentinel_."

"Incomplete? No way are you incomplete, Fraser." Ray couldn't believe that his friend obviously thought so little of himself.

"But I am, Ray. For a _Sentinel_ to be able to function fully he requires a _Guide_." Fraser looked over his shoulder to stare at Blair. "Without one, a _Sentinel_ can be lost to his or her senses."

"The zone-out factor," Blair piped in excitedly, wondering what else Benton Fraser knew. Blair had caught the earlier reference to non-_Sentinel_ researcher, did that mean there were actually _Sentinel_s who had researched the phenomenon and did that mean more material available. The biggest question in Blair's mind was how would he go about getting his hands on that research.

Jim noted Blair's elevated heart rate, and smiled fondly. You might be able to take the academic out of academia but it seemed that you couldn't take the academia out of the academic.

"That is as good a word for it as any, though it doesn't quite encompass all of the risk factors. A _Sentinel_, completely immersed in their senses can actually lose all connection to the real world. An un_guide_d _Sentinel_ is quite capable of taking the out-of-body experience one step too far." Noting the look of concern that crossed ex-anthropologist's face, Fraser sought to reassure. "The chances of that sort of 'break' are significantly reduced when a _Sentinel_-_Guide_ bond is formed. It seems that the very existence of such a bond helps anchor the _Sentinel_ to the world even when he is not necessarily in close proximity to his _Guide_."

"And if there isn't such a bond?" Ray kind of figured that was Fraser's problem… Fraser didn't have a _Guide_. "Can anyone be a _Guide_?"

Blair actually answered in the affirmative just as Fraser answered in the negative.

"Yes, or no, guys?" Ray, and Jim, both snapped simultaneously. Both men were interested in the answer for surprisingly similar reasons.

Blair, for completely different reasons, also had to admit he was interested in Fraser's answer. He would have sworn that anyone could actually be a _Guide_ then, as Fraser spoke, Blair remembered the difficulty other member of Major Crime had bringing Jim out of a zone if he wasn't there; was that because he was Jim's _Guide_ and therefore the only one who could get through to Jim when he zoned or was it because he was _A_ _Guide_ with whatever mystical abilities that entailed. Was there really something even more special about being a _Guide_ than Burton's research suggested?

"The _Guide_-_Sentinel_ bond is a lot like the bond between two people deeply in love." Fraser started to explain. "While there is probably no truth to the idea of a _one-true-love_ there is some truth to the idea that there are few people that anyone can really, and truly, love that deeply. The same is true of the _Sentinel_-_Guide_ bond; there are very few people that can bond as a _Guide_ to a _Sentinel_. Without the right _connection_, no bond will form."

"So a _Guide_ needs to be gay?" Ray had to admit he could be down with that if it meant a closer connection to his friend; here's to hoping.

"What gives you that idea, Ray?" Fraser actually frowned.

'_Way to burst my bubble, Fraser_'. Ray's shoulders slumped dejectedly, a fact that Fraser noticed immediately, even as Ray continued. "Well if a _Sentinel_ was male and from what I've heard it sounds a lot like the _Guide_ would be male as well."

"Being lovers does not necessarily follow from that, Ray. Although it seems very common, it is not an absolute." Was Ray indicating, however obliquely, that he was interested in him in a manner other than platonic? Fraser very quickly quashed that thought after all he had learned his lessons well; good things did not come to Fraser.

Blair, in the meantime, was almost salivating as Fraser spoke. Fraser knew things. "Man, I can't wait till we get where were going. I have so many questions I want to ask you. But how have you coped so far? I mean, Jim here almost freaked when his senses started playing up." Blair remembered the almost basket case that Jim had been when he had first found his _Sentinel_. How had Benton Fraser coped for so long?

Fraser looked surprised at that statement. Was Blair implying that Jim Ellison wasn't always aware of his senses?

Blair saw the look and interpreted it correctly launching into a highly expurgated version of Jim's history and the time that his _Sentinel_ senses came back online.

"That would explain a great many things. I was brought up amongst people who knew what I was," Benton did not feel the need to add the fact that among the people he was resented for being a white _Sentinel_. "I was taught how to control my senses well enough to be able to cope until such time as I might meet my _Guide_."

That explained the kid-at-the-candy-store look. Fraser was still waiting for his _Guide_. "Didn't you connect with anyone?" Blair had to know.

"My grandparents moved around the Territories a lot when I was growing up so I did not get to spend enough time anywhere to develop that sort of connection." Fraser attempted to look composed as he spoke but Blair Sandburg had spent too many hours studying human nature and psychology not to be able to make a few shrewd guesses about Fraser and his lack of a _Guide_ this late in life.

"I suspect any potential _Guide_s were kept well away from you Ben." Blair, the shaman and healer, spoke to the younger _Sentinel_. "They didn't want to accept a white man protecting the tribe, did they?"

Fraser's nod was all the answer Blair needed.

The silence that descended in the vehicle was almost palpable. Ray knew enough of Fraser's history to be well aware that his friend had abandonment issue but to have some fundamental part of him denied because he wasn't native enough just sucked. Ray might not be a Harvard Graduate or anything real special like that but he was very good at reading people, hearing what they didn't want to say. 'And then the RCMP sends you to Chicago because they don't want you either?' Ray had to wonder at what it was that kept Fraser going.

"Well," Jim spoke into the silence, "from what I've read of Detective Vecchio's case files you seem to be doing a fairly good job of protecting this tribe."

'Protecting the tribe,' that was the second time in as many minutes that phrase had been spoken and both times Fraser and Ellison had reacted, minutely but they had reacted. "So is that what _Sentinel_s do? Protect the tribe?" Ray wanted clarification and with luck he would get it.

"Essentially yes," Sandburg again took up the narration. "In all tribal cultures, every village had a _Sentinel_. This was someone who patrolled the borders, not a scout, more like a watchman; the _Sentinel_ watched for approaching enemies, changes in the weather, movement of game. The tribe's survival depended on the _Sentinel_. Now a _Sentinel_ was chosen because of a genetic advantage; sensory awareness that can be developed beyond normal humans. Burton's research also talks of a partner, someone to watch the _Sentinel_'s back. One thing I've learnt, however, is that the _Guide_ is more important than Burton's original research suggested."

"And yet you are un_guide_d Fraser." Ray brought the conversation back to the original point, Fraser's lack of a _Guide_.

"Yes, Ray. What that means is that I can not use my senses to their fullest extent."

"Well I'm sure we can something about that." Blair was grinning like a fool. They hadn't even begun to discuss the case that they were in Chicago to solve but he was getting a very strong sense that solving this serial offence was going to be much easier if they could bring Benton Fraser's _Sentinel_ skills fully online. The answer to how was currently sitting on Blair's lap, the Serval had moved quietly to curl up on the Shaman thigh's whilst the men had been discussing just what a _Sentinel_ was.

"I think Detective Vecchio is your _Guide_, Benton." Blair stated as he dropped his hand to caress the Serval's head.

- - - - - - - - -

Later, Blair would admit that maybe stating such a bold pronouncement in the tense environment of Detective Vecchio's car was not one of his brighter moments. At the time he found himself thrown hard against the door as the car whipped into a sudden, and very uncontrolled, spin. Detective Vecchio had reacted in a manner completely unexpected, turning to face the man who sat behind him, and in doing so turned the wheel with him.

Cosmic luck, or some other force, must have been on their side, however, as Vecchio's unexpected U-turn didn't end in a sudden trip to the emergency ward. Instead, the GTO swung to a neat stop, parallel parked exactly 5 inches from the kerb, in front of the Canadian Consulate. Diefenbaker, as the only corporal being not belted in, was thrown hard against Jim before bouncing back to land on Blair's lap, proving to the anthropologist/detective that he was capable of a surprising amount of invective all of which was howled in Wolfish.

"Diefenbaker. Manners." The Mountie obviously understood wolfish as well. Blair was willing to believe he could have lit tinder off Fraser's ears they were so red.

"Oh my. Is everyone alright?" A pale faced young man, dressed in similar red serge to Fraser, opened the passenger door which Blair was leaning precariously against, and suddenly fell to the ground beside the GTO with a lap full of unhappy wolf.

Diefenbaker, his dignity seriously bruised, let out a growl that caused Turnbull to attempt to scramble out from under the wolf. Luckily for all concerned, there were no witnesses nearby armed with video cameras. Finally, after extricating himself from his highly undignified position atop of Turnbull, Diefenbaker stalked into the consulate ignoring all protests from Fraser to calm down.

"Constable Fraser? Detective Kowalski? Are you both all right?" Turnbull righted himself and looked into the car having finally realised to whom the vehicle belonged. Given the spectacular way in which the car had pulled up, he should have realized immediately who had been driving it. "Are these the guests that we are expecting?"

- - - - - - - - -

Diefenbaker stalked in through the open door of the consulate with Jim's panther, Blair's timber-wolf, and the Serval that might or might not belong to Detective Ray Kowalski following behind. To those left in the street, and able to the see the procession of animals, it was an awesome sight. The sheer power radiating from the animals was almost enough to cause the Shaman to zone. Turnbull, with the psychic ability of a tepid brick, saw none of this, which, in the grand scheme of things was a good thing as his mind might finally have short circuited as a result.

The click-clack of claws on the polished red wood floor drew Inspector Thatcher out of her office to glare at the artic wolf; Diefenbaker as always walking about like he owned the building. The only reason that Inspector Thatcher was still in the building was she was rather curious about the gentleman from Cascade that the Consulate would be playing host too. That there was also an opportunity to indirectly further her career prospects (if, Constable Fraser was successful in assisting in the apprehension of the criminal that the Cascade detectives were tracking) had almost nothing to do with her remaining on duty later than normal. Her curiosity had to wait, however, as it was Turnbull that entered the building first, literally staggering under the weight of their guests' luggage. It was at times like this that the Thatcher had to admit she really wondered how Renfield Turnbull had actually made it through RCMP training. Surely he could have taken more than one trip to bring the luggage in? Further internal grousing about the mental state of her staff was interrupted as Benton Fraser escorted the gentlemen from Cascade into the foyer and it was only that fact that she was somewhat inured of beautiful men due to her long association with Benton Fraser that allowed her to observe the men without her jaw dropping.

"Ahhh, Inspector Thatcher, Sir. I would like to introduce Detective Blair Sandburg and Detective James Ellison." Fraser pointed first to the shorter of the two men that had followed the red-clad Mountie inside then to the taller man.

"Inspector Thatcher, I'm very pleased to meet you gentlemen. I hope you will enjoy your stay in Canada." Meg strode forward, hand held ready to shake hands with both of them. She couldn't decide which of the men was the more striking: the taller man screamed 'military' and had the same contained air about him that characterised Fraser; the smaller man was not really that small she realised, he was just dwarfed by his companion, but he exuded a quite power very reminiscent of the Inuit Elders that had sometimes lectured to young recruits at RCMP headquarters.

"Thank you for offering to put us up." Blair Sandburg, always the charmer, had a thousand watt smile ready for the Inspector. Blair was curious to note the way in which the woman looked his partner up and down. Jim did tend to turn eyes wherever he went.

"No bother, we have a very special relationship with the American police." The somewhat unsubtle dig did not pass by unnoticed, though it was Fraser who was apparently the most distressed. "Constable Fraser indicated that you might prefer quieter accommodations than those the Chicago PD might have access to."

"Sir," Constable Fraser cut into the conversation before any territorial rivalries could flare up into full scale war. "I thought the Lester B. Pearson suite would be suitable for our guests."

"Good thinking, Constable. Well you gentlemen must have had a long and tiring day so I will say good night." Meg Thatcher knew how to make a graceful withdrawal. "I'll leave you in the capable hands of my constables. Constable Fraser I expect your 10989-B report on my desk in the morning."

"Yes, Sir." Fraser nodded his head politely to his superior officer before returning his attention to their guests and the stumbling Turnbull. "Turnbull, perhaps you would like some help to take the gentlemen's luggage to the Pearson Suite?"

Unfortunately, as expected, Turnbull indicated that he was quite capable of transporting the detective's luggage upstairs and that Constable Fraser need not worry. Luckily, Blair had acquired the briefcase that held all of the case notes before the eager young Constable started up the stairs. Unfortunately, Fraser had been unable to relieve Turnbull of any of the other luggage which meant that all of the Cascade detective's clothing went flying when Turnbull tripped on the first step.

Fraser saw to the hapless Turnbull, encouraging the younger man to dust himself off and head home for the evening. That left the way clear for Jim and Blair to rescue their belongings, though Fraser's sharp eyes noted (in passing) the content of Blair's toiletry kit and suddenly found that he had to tamp down an unreasonable flare of jealousy; it seemed the Jim and Blair definitely shared the closest of bonds between _Sentinel_ and _Guide_. Still, once his jealousy was under control, Fraser was glad of his decision to house the Cascade pair in the Pearson suite; the master bedroom had a bed that would easily accommodate both men, and a quiet word to Turnbull would ensure Jim and Blair's privacy.

"Ray, would you mind waiting the parlour room? I'm sure that Constable Turnbull would have left be coffee brewing." His head nodding towards the where Turnbull was being escorted from the premises by Inspector Thatcher.

"No, I'll wait in your office. Have a word with the wolves." Ray's smile, once the coast was clear and the other two Canadian's had left the building, was infectious and Fraser was quickly answering it with one of his own; the easy exchange noted by the other detectives present.

"We will join you momentarily then, Ray. I'll just show Detectives Sandburg and Ellison upstairs." With that Fraser turned and headed up that stairs assuming that the two detectives would follow.

The walls of the Lester B. Pearson suite were painted light blue in honour of the connection between the now dead former Canadian Prime Minister's links to the creation of the UN peacekeeping forces; the colour was particularly soothing to _Sentinel_ sensibilities. The suite itself was comprised of two bedrooms, a private study, a public lounge room, a small dining room, and, a very luxurious bathroom. It was to the larger of the bedrooms that Fraser led his guests. "I hope these accommodations will suffice."

"Um, yeah." Blair was in _Guide_ heaven. The suite itself was peaceful in a way only a _Guide_ or _Sentinel_ would notice. The carpet was pure wool, the furnishings all made from various timbers or metals (not a bit of plastic in sight) with cotton, wool, silk, or leather coverings. There was nothing in the entire suite that would set Jim's senses off. The bedroom was a sybarite's dream and the bathroom looked ready made for an evening of pure indulgence. "These will definitely suffice."

"I'll wait for you downstairs then gentlemen. I expect that Ray will want to talk to you both before he heads home tonight."

- - - - - - - - -

"All right Darwin, you can start salivating now." Jim looked over at his partner in crime (and other things) with a wry expression.

"Hey. What do you mean start? I thought you'd be telling me to stop."

"I know you, Chief. You've just been introduced to a Sentinel that seems to know an awful lot about being a Sentinel; you haven't even begun to drool yet."

"Hey, I resemble that remark."

"Yes, Chief. I know."

"Yeah, but think about it man. Benton actually knows about being a Sentinel. Think what you could learn from him." Blair was almost jumping up and down with glee as he really began to consider the possibilities; that is until he remember the last time he'd tangled with another Sentinel. "Hell, man. You're not getting all territorial are you? No sudden urges to jump the Mountie's bones?"

"Calm down Blair. The only 'bones' I'm thinking about jumping are bouncing around the room." That comment was backed up by a heated grin that if they didn't have to deal with a serial killer, and the probable Sentinel/Guide pair downstairs, would have meant neither man would have surfaced for a week. "As for territoriality, I think Fraser dealt with that at the airport."

"So you were feeling threatened until that?" The need for more data driving Blair to start question his friend.

"Not threatened so much as jumpy. The skin crawling feeling I got with Alex wasn't there but…." Jim was at a loss to really explain what he felt; Blair was always the good one when it came to words. "I kind of knew we were heading into guarded territory. I just didn't understand who was guarding it. Maybe if we run into more Sentinels that are actually acting as Sentinels I'll find react the same way but at the moment I have nothing to compare the feeling against other than the Alex itch and as I just said the feeling I got wasn't that one."

"That's an answer anyway Jim." Blair flopped down onto the king sized bed. "And Jim, you will let me know if you ever have that 'Alex' sensation again won't you?"

"I think we've both learnt our lessons on that front, Chief." Jim still had the occasional nightmare as a result of the whole Alex fiasco and he knew, though his partner tended to obfuscate on the point, that Blair still suffered more than his fair share of nightmares about that time as well. Communication and trust, hard earned was the basis of their partnership but it didn't hurt to occasionally remind each other to be open about anything that might connect to the whole Sentinel/Guide package. "Any funny feeling and you will be the first to know."

Blair smiled at his partner fully understanding the spoken (and unspoken) messages. Taking the subject as finalised, at least for the moment, Blair sighed happily. "Did you notice that Benton bought all our luggage into this room?"

"Yeah, I noticed that too." Jim just accepted the segue to a new topic of conversation without a fuss. "It would seem like the Canadian's don't have a problem with our sleeping arrangements."

"Or at least Benton doesn't have a problem. You think he had much to do with the décor of this room?"

"I'd have to say yes to that, Chief. The whole suite in fact is very Sentinel friendly. Which kind of begs the question of why the Canadian Consulate needs a suite that would suit a Sentinel?"

"And can he introduce us to more…."

"Like I said Chief, stop drooling. Now don't you think it is past time that we join our hosts?" The smell of good coffee was wafting up from down below and Jim felt the need to feed his caffeine addiction; it had been a long day after all.

"We'd better work out what we are going to do about our host first, Jim. We're here to deal with a serial killer but I have the funny feeling we are going to have to sort out Benton and Detective Vecchio first."

"You sure? I mean we've got one fully functioning Sentinel." Jim was somewhat uncharacteristically put out, unconsciously assuming that if they 'sorted Ray and Benton out' then he would be competing with another Sentinel, both on the case and for Blair's attention; a stupid, jealous and a totally uncalled for response but as Blair had once said he, Jim, had fear based responses down pat. "How about we catch the killer then we can see about helping them pair up."

"I don't know man, I've got this funny feeling that we are going to need Benton and I mean Benton functioning fully as the Sentinel of Chicago."

Noting the determine look in his partner's eyes Jim could already feel his resolve wavering. If Blair really thought it was important he had better listen; too many things had gone wrong in the past when he hadn't. Still, he wanted to understand Blair's reasoning; was it a Blair thing or a Shaman thing? "Ok, suppose I agree. Can you tell me why you think we need him? We are primaries on this case after all."

"Think about Jim. In the last year you've become much more attuned to Cascade."

A raised eyebrow was the only response from the taller detective.

Blair was suddenly struck by the idea that maybe Jim hadn't even noticed his growing sensitivity to his home city but Blair and others such as their captain, sure had. Simon had, in fact, commented more than once recently about the pair's ability to be in the right place at the right time to prevent a major crime, or to control it before it became something of a major disaster. But it hadn't been luck that had placed them in the way of the crime, rather Jim would suddenly stop whatever he'd been doing and race off, dragging Blair behind him, and the next thing Blair would know they were facing down criminals involved in some serious crime or another. The cover story the stuck to was the 'Blair trouble magnet' which was well and truly established in the Cascade PD folklore but these days it wasn't Blair's trouble magnet tendencies that put them there.

"Jim, surely you've worked it out by now. You're so in tune with Cascade that you pick up on big crime vibes. I mean think about it man, I out the serial signature together but you were the one who was getting edgy about it long before I saw any pattern. Think about, two months ago, when The Sunrise Son's planned to blow the court house you just had to drag me out there because, and I quote, "I'm sure we had a court date today Chief. Maybe we'd better swing by and check."

Jim managed a look normally associated with a mullet, a stunned one at that. Blair could almost see the wheels turning in his friend's head as he out together all the 'coincidental happenings' of the last year or so. "But if that's a Sentinel thing how come it only started about a year ago?"

"Because about a year ago you finally accepted the spiritual side of being a Sentinel."

"And you died." Jim gathered his partner into his arms and held him tight. "God's Blair, I so sorry I let you down then."

"Forget big guy. It's the past and some good things have come out of it. Still…."

"Let's go down and see what our hosts have to say." Jim closed the conversation. "And if you think we need to do a bit of Shaman work before we can get this case moving we'd better get to it."

- - - - - - - - -

The sounds of a quiet discussion drew Jim and Blair towards the office near the back of the Consulate. Inside the room, Fraser was standing at parade rest with his back to the door. Ray sat, sprawled, in the single chair, glaring at the Mountie. Apparently Fraser's delaying tactics weren't working and the Chicago cop wanted answers about the _Guide_ thing and he wanted them now.

"Come on Fraser, you don't need to wait for the Cascade cops to answer my questions." Ray was rather put out that Benton refused to discuss the whole _Sentinel_ thing. The fact that Fraser maintained the line that any explanations would be quicker, and more informative, if they waited till the duo from Cascade came back downstairs didn't fool Ray one little bit. Fraser was hoping to avoid the conversation all together.

"Whilst you are correct, Ray, in that I could explain things without waiting for Detectives Ellison and Sandburg, I believe that as the discussions intimately involve the gentlemen it behoves me to await their presence. Some of what I might say may be things that they would prefer to remain confidential."

"Fraser…" Ray tried the '_pout_' but even that didn't work. Fraser just stood there like a statue.

Jim and Blair, standing in the doorway, were rather amused to watch the battle of wills that played out before them. "Do you think we ever look like that, Chief?" Jim's eyes indicating the standoff in front of them.

"If we do, I think I can understand why Simon's going grey."

"Come in gentlemen," Fraser tried to take advantage of the fact that the Cascade detectives had joined them to distract Ray. It didn't work.

"Yes, come in and explain why I have a Serval sitting on my lap." Ray beamed at the two men in the doorway. His smile wasn't fooling anyone, least of all himself.

Jim followed Blair into the surprisingly cramped office; the question of why a camp bed was set up behind the desk being one of many the older detective wanted to ask. Though, Jim had to admit, that at the moment the bed's presence was rather useful as it gave the larger spirit _guide_s, corporal or otherwise, somewhere to lounge and lounge they were doing. Three heads poked out of a tangled 'dog-pile' of white, grey and black fur. The general expression on the animals' faces indicated that they expected the humans to hurry and get on with the explaining.

Blair, his role as Shaman obviously in need here, stepped into the information breech. "The short story would be that you apparently are a _Guide_ which is a lot more than just someone who watches over a _Sentinel_."

"And the long story?" Ray prompted, even as his hands continued to stroke the fur of the animal on his lap.

"_Sentinels_ have hyper sensitive senses, seeing before others see, hearing what other cannot and so on, and so forth. The problem with that is they can get so lost in a type of sensory overload called a zone. To prevent, or to pull a _Sentinel_ out of, a zone, they always had an assigned partner called a _Guide_. Richard Burton, the researcher, not the actor, talked about _Sentinels_ and _Guides_ but his theories indicated that a _Guide_ was just some other tribe member when in fact it appears that being a _Guide_, like being a _Sentinel_, is something you are born to.

I'm Jim's _Guide_ and I think that you might be Benton's _Guide_."

"But if _Sentinels_ are supposed to have _Guides_ or they fall into that zone thing why hasn't Fraser?"

"I'd kind of like to know that as well." Jim commented. The shock of having met another _Sentinel_ had worn off enough that he was starting to wonder how the man in question, Benton Fraser, had survived without a _Guide_; his own experiences with his senses going haywire gave him more than enough reasons to want to respect the Mountie.

"To function fully as a _Sentinel_ a _Guide_ is needed," Benton started speaking softly, "but if you know what you are and have enough discipline, it is possible to cope without a _Guide_."

Not surprisingly the others in the room, man and animal, all understood that Benton's use of the word 'cope' was something of an overstatement.

"So how does a _Sentinel_ hook up with a _Guide_? Is there some sort of complicated ritual or something? Because I've been hanging around with Fraser here for over a year and I haven't had any mystical need to guide his back; rescue it yes, guide it no."

Thinking back over their own complicated history, Blair and Jim could easily see why the potential bond between the Chicago cop and the Mountie hadn't formed; after all it had taken Blair's drowning for them to both accept the complete nature of their link. Since that point of acceptance, Jim hadn't zoned deeply and the simplest of touches were enough to bring him back to the conscious world. Before then, it had still been easy enough to fall into a zone, even with Blair as back up, but Blair had always been able to pull him out.

Blair, falling into a slight trace, observed Fraser and Ray with the Shamanic power that Incacha had passed onto him. The potential link between the two men was obvious to his spirit sight; the desire for that link burning even brighter. The problem was how to activate the link without having to kill anyone. Blair had been there, done that, bought the T-Shirt and didn't want to do it again. "Activating the link needs to happen in the spirit plane but getting there isn't always that easy." Blair commented to his audience.

Ray's eyebrows rose in disbelief at the very mention of the spirit plane; which, considering that part of the spirit world was happily being stroked by the incredulous detective was a rather amusing image. "And just how do we get to the spirit plane? Hop on an Ouija board?"

"Normally Jim and I meditate." Blair wasn't too happy to have the spirituality of the _Sentinel_-_Guide_ bond 'dissed' even knowing how fantastical it generally sounded.

"Or we could just walk into my closet." Benton remarked softly though not softly enough.

"Closet?" Three stunned voices sounded in tri-phonic synchronisation.


	3. Chapter 3

Title:Five Senses

Author:JustJeanette

FandomsThe Sentinel, Due South

Genre:Drama, Angst, Slash, Pre-Slash, Case-Based

Pairing(s):Established J/B, pre-slash/Slash Fraser/RayK

Summary:Crossover: Due South x Sentinel. A serial killer has come to Chicago. Two Detectives from Cascade follow him and find more than they were expecting. PostTSbBS. Cop!Blair

Rating:FRAO for Violence and crime detail.

Version1.0

Chapter 3 

Taking the easy way out, and hopefully avoiding the need for any long winded explanations, Fraser walked around the desk and into the closet leaving three stunned men to follow or not. The animals all followed Fraser.

"Does this mean we get to come out of the closet?" Ray jested in a poor attempt to cover up his nervousness.

"Well, first we'll have to go into the closet." So saying, Blair led the way all the while hoping that it wasn't going to be that easy. He had enough trouble getting Jim to meditate as it was and the very idea that simply walking into a closet would grant you entry to the spirit plane was almost anathema to him. Where was the spiritual journey, the knowledge of self? The sweat hut? The psychedelic herbs?

"It is about time you brought him in here Son. I've been yammering in the Yank's ear for ages, but he just hasn't been listening." The older man, that Blair had last seen standing on the gantry back at O'Hare, now stood in the middle of a rustic, snow-bound cabin and seemed perfectly content to cause consternation to all present.

"Excuse me?!" Benton yelped whilst Ray commented, "Damn, and here I though it was the left-over pizza."

"Just who the hell are you?" Jim's first reaction to the 'spectre' had been to pull his gun.

"Robert Fraser, RCMP, retired."

"Not retired enough." Benton wasn't taking his father's presence very well, or the fact that everyone could now see him. The older man ruffled the furs of various animals, which were quite content to mill around him.

"Aren't you supposed to be dead?" Ray looked at the 'man' purporting to be Fraser's father.

"Well, yes. But don't let that worry you, Yank." Bob Fraser spoke to Ray before he turned his attention back to the Cascade detectives, "Had to keep an eye on this one. Couldn't let him run about with only a wolf as a _Guide_."

Hackles raised as Diefenbaker stalked away from the dead Mountie, obviously unhappy as Bob's comments.

Bob just looked at the arctic wolf. "You couldn't always be with Benton."

"Would someone just please explain just what the hell is going on?" Ray finally lost what little of his temper he had left after the day he had just had.

Bob turned to face the 'Yank' on whom his son's life would soon depend and for once didn't wander off into the cryptic sorts of comments that Benton was used to hearing from his deceased parent. "Benton is a _Sentinel_ without a _Guide_ and as such he cannot function to properly protect Chicago. You have the potential to be his _Guide_, but my son isn't very good at relying on other people and so the two of you need a bit of extra help to form the bond."

"Protect Chicago? I would have thought he'd be the _Sentinel_ of Inuvik." Blair couldn't quite workout how a Canadian Mountie could be the _Sentinel_ of an American city.

"Why should he be _Sentinel_ of Inuvik, or some other small tribal area of Canada? The world is a very different place to what your Richard Burton inhabited and the _Sentinel_s have evolved as the world has changed. Didn't your _Sentinel_ guard the jungles of Peru before he returned to Cascade?" Bob Fraser smiled at the gob-smacked expression on the long-haired _Guide_.

"Benton helps protect his home by protecting Chicago," Bob continued, completely ignoring the fact that Fraser was in the room, directing the rest of his comments back to Ray. "You need to understand that Benton has had to cope most of his life with the fact that if he lost control of his senses he could very well end up dead, zoning whilst on patrol in the back end of the Northern Territories is a recipe for hypothermia, so my son has learnt to make do and not ask for help.

Now, whilst I'm certain at an instinctive level Benton has recognised the _Guide_ in you, he has no idea how to reach out and accept that bond. The Shaman here should be able to help with that."

"So you mean Fraser kind of knows he needs my help but he can't ask for it?" Ray realised, even as he asked, that it was a stupid question. Fraser had gone up against Warfield alone rather than ask the other detectives to risk their lives or reputations.

"Solid, reliable, but just a bit dense. That is my Son for you."

Ray had to agree that a truer set of words had never been spoken. For all of Fraser's book-learning, he was rather clueless when it came to inter-personal relationships. "So how do we go about this bonding?"

"You really want to be my _Guide_?" Fraser actually sounded like he didn't believe his ears.

Blair, with a naturally high level of empathy, had to forcibly hold his instinctive reaction in check. The older Fraser had made passing mention to 'abandonment issues' but the young Shaman could see that they weren't passing issues and even now the Mountie seemed to expect that he was to be disappointed. That feeling was backed up by the next words out of Fraser's mouth.

"You won't be able to leave, have your own separate life, if you become my _Guide_. It is the nature of the bond that spiritually the two become one so that if one leaves the other dies."

"But you said earlier that it wasn't a sex thing."

"Is the bond between police partners a sex thing?"

"Then what is your problem, Fraser? You think I'll just up and leave you?"

"No, I don't think you would 'up and leave' as you put it, Ray. But think about it, it is about the fact that you could not leave. What happens if you find someone to love again like you loved Stella? If she were to move to Florida to run a bowling alley you would want to go with her, but if you were my _Guide_ you could not." Fraser' face actually coloured very slightly at that last statement; a sure sign to Ray (who held a PhD in reading Fraser) that he wasn't telling the whole truth.

"Fraser?" The interrogative eyebrow indicating that the truth would be appreciated.

"All right. You could go Ray," Fraser sighed, "but I would die."

"And me?" Ray realised later that the shocked tone probably didn't help his chances of getting Fraser to accept the bond but the idea that such a link might have mortal consequences startled him too much.

"No, you wouldn't die. _Guide_s can outlive their _Sentinel_s, though admittedly very few choose to, but a _Sentinel_ has never outlived their _Guide_. Once the bond is set a _Sentinel_ depends on it. If it is taken away, a _Sentinel_ dies from Sensory overload."

Jim and Blair looked at each other. Luckily, they had already subconsciously accepted the depth of their commitment to each other otherwise they might have been more than a little uncomfortable with the direction the conversation playing out in front of them was taking. Still, both were learning a lot more about the _Sentinel_-_Guide_ bond than they had expected. To learn all this whilst witnessing the depth of pain in Fraser's eyes was almost too much to bear; as one they moved to take Fraser into a tight embrace, Ray joining them a fraction of a second later.

Fraser stiffened and didn't relax into the embrace.

"Fraser, it will be all right." The Shaman in Blair spoke, low and melodious, as Blair reached up and touched the tight frown line that ran between Fraser's eyes.

"Come on, Fraser. Let me in, buddy. Let me help you." Ray tightened his hold on his friend, then, because it was in Ray's nature to threaten as a sign of caring Ray squeezed Fraser even tighter and commented. "Else I'll have to kick you in the head and hold you down while I help you."

The utter normality of being threatened with a head kicking worked where the embraces hadn't. Fraser relaxed.

"Ray, would you be my _Guide_?"

"Remember Fraser, we're a duet. The old one-two punch." Ray shrugged, and then grinned at the stunned look on Fraser's face.

"Finally." Bob Fraser muttered from where he was still watching the whole saga unfold.

"So what do we do now?" Ray looked at Blair, instinctively knowing that the younger detective had a role to play in this.

"Well, hopefully one of you doesn't have die for this to work." Blair still had a few issues himself about what had been needed before Jim had finally accepted the bond that existed between them. Seeing the look of horror on Fraser's face Blair rushed to reassure. "We had some trouble with a rogue Sentinel. She tried to remove me from the equation and to cut a long story short she drowned me. Jim, using the link between Sentinel and Guide, managed to bring me back. The Sentinel-Guide bond set at that moment, before then I was able to help him control his senses but now I guide him fully."

Ray looked confused but Fraser obviously understood the distinction.

"For Jim and me, well, we had to take that dive together. I'm not quite sure what you symbolic journey needs to be but there is one."

Staring out the cabin's window, Blair suddenly had a clear idea of the journey the men had to take. "You need to climb that Mountain."

"Fraser? You ready to take a trip with me?"

Instead of answering, Fraser started to gather together mukluks, snow shoes, pitons and ropes. When he had all the necessary gear together Fraser approached Ray, almost as a supplicant would approach the king, and placed his Stetson on Ray's head.

'Pitter, patter, let's get at her,' was Ray's only comment as he allowed Fraser to help him into the clothing necessary to survive a Canadian winter.

- - - - - - - - -

Blair watched as the two men walked out into the Canadian wilderness. When they were finally out of sight he turned to face the spectre of Benton Fraser's father. "You implied that I would be needed here in my role as a Shaman but Benton and Ray could have worked all that out with Jim and I being here."

"You will be needed yet young Shaman. You see, conquering the Mountain will only set half of the bond; it will allow the Yank to finally realise that he can trust my son with his life but Benton is so used to repressing his abilities it is going to take more than climbing that Mountain to get him to consciously accept the bond.

You see, Benton expects to be abandoned, and as he knows exactly what happens to a Sentinel who has lost his Guide he is almost programmed to reject the bond rather than risk what he will see as eventual suicide."

"Why does he expect to be abandoned?" Jim was more than a little curious about that. After all, abandonment as an issue was something he had had to deal with early in his life and it hadn't affected his ability to accept the bond he had with Blair. Repressing his skills in an attempt to fit in with everyone else and not be seen as a freak he could understand but…

It seemed that the elder Fraser was aware of more than just his son's history. "Your mother might have left you at a young age Detective Ellison but your father, whatever his faults, did not leave you. I made a great many mistakes with my son, not the least of which was leaving him in the care of my parents after his mother died. They were not equipped to deal with Benton appropriately and I rarely there, always preferred the hunt.

When Benton finally tracked down the man who murdered me the RCMP abandoned him, sending him to Chicago until the 'heat died down'; that was nearly four years ago. The femme fatal of his life abandoned him to his fate three years ago and has not been seen since. His first partner in Chicago had to leave to go deep undercover. Benton now simply expects people to leave him."

The raw pain in Bob Fraser's eyes was the only thing that stopped Blair from snarling at the man. "What is it with modern day Sentinel parents? Do they take lessons on how to total stuff someone up? Man, and here I thought Jim had problems. And you want me to just up and fix things?" Blair was not a happy Shaman and it showed.

Bob Fraser looked abashed. "You don't have enough time to fix things."

"Then what do you want, Man? Should I just wave my magic wand and hey-presto there is the bond?"

"If you want to stop the killing, yes."

"What!!!!!" Strangely enough Jim voice was louder than Blair's.

"No way, man." Blair continued on, "That is so not right. A Shaman is a healer and forcing something on someone is not the way to go about healing them."

"So if Detective Ellison were to lock himself in a prison cell for fear that he might commit homicide under the influence of some drug and you had the cure you wouldn't let him out and administer it?" As far as Bob Fraser was concerned now was not the time to play nice so along with the scenario he drew out for the Shaman he allowed his aura to take on a golden glow.

"Oh Man that is so unfair." Blair saw the glow and got the message. "So you think Benton's deliberately locking himself away so he doesn't commit suicide by abandonment? What is too say that your son isn't right?"

"Because the Yank isn't going anywhere, at least not unless pushed; very hard. Seems he has _feeling_ for my son…." The ghost actually looked embarrassed. "The Yank doesn't have problems with committing, that one has problems with letting go."

"And if Benton doesn't want the bond?"

"Then you don't know my son very well."

- - - - - - - - -

Jim Ellison was bored.

Bored and heading fast towards pissed off.

Fraser and Vecchio had disappeared out into the oblivion over what felt like four hours ago but might have been less (or more) as time didn't move quite the same way in the spirit world as it did on the material plane. The sky, the amount Jim could see through the small window that looked out onto artic tundra, had turned progressively darker and stormier as clouds had moved in. Yet, the two men he waited for showed no signed of returning. Even with his senses stretched to the full, Jim had been unable to detect anything past the door to the alpine shack that he, his partner, and the ghost waited in; an alpine shack that didn't have a fridge, beer or even a deck of cards with which to pass the time. He'd have been tempted to lie down and catch some sleep (old army habit dying hard and all, you caught sleep when you could) but the only bed was currently occupied by two wolves, a panther and a Serval, none of whom showed any intention to move in the near future.

"Just how long do you think they are going to be?" Jim groused to the room in general and his partner in particular; his partner who, unlike him, appeared to be in seventh heaven as Bob Fraser (deceased) regaled the young Shaman with tales of attempting to guiding his obstinate son.

"Possibly another two or three hours," the ghost commented. "The Yank has depths that will take a while to plumb. Stubborn, yes that is the word I would use to describe him."

"What?" Blair's internal radar suddenly pinged loud and clear. The ghost knew something and he, Blair, had a feeling that he wasn't going to like it when he found out what that was. "Plumb what depths?"

Jim, looking on, was suddenly glad that he was bored and therefore not actively involved in the conversation between Blair and Fraser's father. If he had been involved then he might have been on the receiving end of the glare that his partner was currently levelling at the ghost. It was kind of funny to see someone who was already dead suddenly look like death warmed over… Funny that was until he noticed the ghost really did look like death warmed over and was looking worse by the second as Blair continued to glare at him.

"Blair," stepping between his angry partner and the ghost seemed the most expedient option, "I think you're killing the ghost here." Jim realised how correct he'd was when the ghostly figure behind him actually murmured his thanks. It seemed pissing off a shaman, at least on the spirit plane, was not conducive to a long after life if you were a ghost.

"And I think he's trying to kill Kowalski."

"Not kill exactly." Robert Fraser, never really known for tact, suddenly decided that maybe it was time to learn some; it was bad enough with the Shaman giving him the death glare, particularly as it could actually kill off his immortal soul if the Shaman decided to push the issue, but adding the glare the Sentinel's glare to the mix made him a decidedly uncomfortable spectral presence. "Benton cares for that Yank but unless he really sees him in mortal danger my son is unlikely to act on any of his feelings. I bought him up to be a strong man and …"

"What is it with parents of Sentinels?" Blair interrupted, loudly and very angrily. "Do you all take courses on psychological abuse of young Sentinels or something? Strong men, our sons have to be strong men! Strong men don't feel! Strong men need to see those they care about nearly dead before they'll even acknowledge they care." Blair was on a roll and quite frankly didn't care who knew. God's it took him actually dying before Jim had finally accepted the depths of his feelings for the young Guide; would Kowalski have to go through that as well?

"Sublimate, repress, develop Temporomandibular Joint (TMJ) Syndrome, anything but relax and go with the flow. Man I am so glad I don't know who my father is."

"Blair," a touch to his should brought the young man out of his funk, though it didn't stop Blair sending one last death glare at the ghost. Blair might say he was glad he had no idea who his father was but the words didn't fool the Sentinel. Drawing his partner into a tight embrace Jim dropped his head to plant a gentle kiss on the top of his mate's head; his left hand gently massaging his Guide's lower back as he tried to soothe the hurts that the younger man carried.

"It's ok, man." Blair sought to reassure his Sentinel, burrowing into the taller man's chest. "I just don't like the idea of anyone going through what we went through just to get past some stubborn ideas about what a makes a real man."

Any further discussion was shelved as the nest of spirit animals erupted in a tangle of fur, teeth and limbs. The Serval, smallest of the animals and therefore the most flexible, was leaping out the marginally open window that looked out over icy tundra a fraction ahead of two wolves and a panther, who, not fitting through the window utilised various laws of physics pertaining to weight, force and the breaking point of hinges to escape from the building. Two humans, and one very annoyed ghost, stared out through the opening left by the mass exit of spiritual guides.

"You thing we should follow them?" Jim looked at his partner whilst ignoring Bob Fraser who was currently ranting about the lack of consideration shown his home by all and sundry, but most especially weighty four-legged beasts.

"Jim, you're used to surviving in a jungle environment. That doesn't look like a jungle environment out there." Blair took to pointing out the inhospitable landscape outside. "Following those guys might prove to be dangerous."

"Or we could take my sled." The ghost commented as his rhetoric about inconsiderate spirit animals wound down. "In fact, it might be a good thing all things considered."

"Because?" Jim was impressed; he'd never heard Blair infuse such venom into his voice before, usually Blair was the calm one, it was Jim that tended to react strongly.

"Fraser is dying," the ghost commented, whilst turning a whiter shade of pale. Luckily, for said ghost continued survival, the comment was voiced so softly that only the sentinel in the room heard him.

"What!" Of course Jim's reaction kind of put paid to Robert Fraser's attempt to avoid annoying the shaman any further. "Fraser is dying?"

- - - - - - - - -

Time is a funny thing, even Stephan Hawkins (genius that he is) will admit that. Time on the spirit plane took the notion of Newtonian time and then more, or less, ignored it, though it didn't quite follow Leibniz's definition either. Here, on the spirit plane, time moved as it wanted to, slow, fast, through space or about it. Either way, it seemed like hours before Robert Fraser's sled skidded to a halt at the base Felding's arête, the thin, almost knife-like, ridge of rock rising over 1000 meters above them.

Jim, his eye sight definitely the strongest, was scanning the rocky ridges even before the sled had stopped moving. Four hundred meters above them he could just make out the form of Kowalski, who appeared to be trying to hang onto something that was down in a crevice in the rock; instinct told the tall detective that what the blond held onto was the Mountie. "We need to get up there, fast."

But fast wasn't going to happen in this lifetime. Robert Fraser's sled was well equipped but even the best equipment wasn't going to magically levitate up to where Kowalski lay.

"Any ideas, Chief?" Jim looked at Blair hoping that the younger man would pull a rabbit out of the proverbial.

"_Festina lente_."

"Huh?"

"Hasten Slowly. You know, make haste slowly." Blair explained the cryptic comment. "Racing up and putting yourself in danger isn't going to help anyone, Jim. Now let me think for a minute."

"I don't think we've got a minute here, Chief. I can only just make out Fraser's heart beat up there."

"What else can you see? Can you smell anything? Hear anything?" Blair needed more information, particularly where the spirit guides were. The oft ignored shamanistic side of his nature was making itself heard but the suggestion relied on more information than he currently had.

"Kowalski, he's threatening to kick Ben's head in if Ben doesn't stay with him. He's also ordering the spirit guides to get closer to Ben, keep him warm. Fraser's breathing is pretty shallow." The shallow sound of Fraser's breathing triggered off a sense memory of Blair in hospital after the Golden episode causing him to shivering minutely. Still, getting caught up in sense memories wasn't going to help now. Ruthlessly pushing the memory away Jim focused on his sense of smell, "I can smell blood, too much to be a simple cut."

"Piggy-back your sight onto your sense of smell," Blair advised quietly; the young man had noticed Jim's reactions as the larger detective had recited what his ears were reporting and, with accuracy born of true intimacy, had guessed at what had caused the big man to shy away from sound. "Now what else can you see?"

"Fraser looks like he's broken his leg." Jim sight followed the scent trail like a bloodhound after a fox. "The leg is definitely broken; a compound fracture. He may also be concussed; I can a nasty gash on the right side of Fraser's head. He's in shock, barely breathing, and if he isn't hypothermic it is only because he's currently wrapped in over 100 pounds of fur-covered flesh."

While Jim had been concentrating on finding out what the state of play was Robert Fraser had been methodically unpacking static and dynamic rope, ascenders, biners, swing side pullies, ice-tools, crampons, and a first aid kit. The pile of equipment necessary to affect an alpine rescue, sans helicopter, whilst impressive would be relatively easy for the three men to handle, however two of the men didn't realise at this point that only one of them would be scaling the arête.

"Are we going to need anything else?" Jim asked the ghost.

"Just a miracle or two," the ghost said sadly. The description Jim had given of his son's plight finally sinking in past the layers of oblivious self-centeredness that characterised Robert Fraser, RCMP, deceased. It seemed his plan to get his son to accept the Yank as his guide was going to backfire spectacularly, not only spectacularly, but fatally.

"And some quiet." Blair's non sequitur took both men by surprise. The ghost stared open mouthed at the young detective; Jim just raised one eyebrow in a rather eloquent fashion as if to say 'explain, please.'

"Fraser's physical plight a manifestation of a larger set of spiritual hurts." Blair's rarely used Shamanistic nature had clued the younger detective into what was going on high on the slopes of Felding's arête and it wasn't physical ills.

Looking at the two confused men Blair was tempted to roll his eyes but time was against them, so, instead he reached inside himself and then pointed a finger at Robert Fraser, in the manner of one pointing the bone. "You, Robert Fraser, deceased, need to help _physically_ rescue you son. Take the minimum rescue equipment you will need remembering that you will have Ray Kowalski's help getting your son down the arête. Please note, Benton expects to be abandoned again; maybe you can help Kowalski to convince your son that it won't happen."

"And what do you want me to do, Chief?" Jim asked, ceding control of the rescue operation to Blair without comment.

"I need you to ground me. I'm going to try a Shaman healing on Ben and I need to try now." Blair couldn't explain the urgent feeling that pervaded his soul but he knew that if he didn't start now then they would lose the Mountie regardless of what the Elder Fraser and the Chicago detective did.

"Ok, Chief. How?"

"Hold me, Jim. Make sure that I don't fall over." So saying, Blair began to breathe slowly; a deep, measured cadence that deepened even further when Jim move to stand behind the Shaman, placing his hands at Blair's waist. As Blair's breathe slowed to a rate that even the Sentinel was hard pressed to sense the world began to warp and twist about them. The snow beneath their feet melted away to reveal barren soil, hard packed as though stomped upon be a thousand feet. The slopes of Felding's arête faded into the mists, the chill air moving back as a fire pit formed on the ground in front of the two detectives. The mist that surrounded them began to thicken and solidify, forming onto a caribou hide covered sweat lodge; the blazing fire now dancing merrily in the hut's centre. As the air warmed the scents of Labrador tea, Spruce, and Wester Red Cedar filled the lodge.

The artic furs that both men wore melted away as the air temperature rose. Jim stiffened as he felt invisible hands daub paint about his torso, arms, legs and face; without looking he knew that he was decked out as befitted a warrior of the Chopec, clothed in loin cloth, and the red and black paints of Peru. The panther motif was drawn so lifelike that Jim almost felt as though the beast was poised to jump from his chest.

Blair's transformation was even more stunning. The trappings of civilisation were gone, replaced by the trappings of ancient power; the Shaman, full of power, now stood in front of the Sentinel. Blair was draped in the supplest of caribou hide robes; the wolf motif was the only motif that decorated the robes. Blair held in his right hand a _qilaut_, an Inuit drum, of caribou skin with seal skin around the handle, his left hand held a _katutarq_ (drumstick) carved out of a single piece of wood Peruvian Heartwood. Though Jim could not see it, Blair was naked beneath the robe, his youthful body daubed with charcoal, and cinnabar derived red paint of Peru; a stylised wolf watching the world.

As Blair's trance deepened the world shifted once more.

Benton Fraser, naked, except for a simple loin cloth, appeared on the other side of the fire pit. The hurts the Jim had described earlier clearly visible.

Blair began to sing.

As the song rose in power Blair began to drum, the beat echoing Benton's heart.

As the power of the drum took hold of the Mountie, Blair began to dance. Swaying slowly at first, Blair gained momentum. Suddenly Blair stepped away from his Sentinel and like a dervish whirled, whipped, stepped and danced around fallen man, Benton Fraser; the dance spoke of love, healing, a safe harbour to call home, the dance called out across the spirit plane to Ray Kowalski and leant the Chicago detective the strength needed to break through the walls that surrounded Benton's heart.

Up on the arête's slopes, watched by the ghost of Robert Fraser, Ray Kowalski instinctively grabbed the power offered and pulled Benton Fraser spirit to him. Benton's spirit answered and, before either man was consciously aware of the fact, Sentinel and Guide bonded.


End file.
